Silver Lining
by Juno'nyme
Summary: A/U. This is the future they all yearned for: Queen Serenity scarcely leaves the palace, but inside its walls there are stories to be told. Seiya/Usagi. A vision of the future.


_I do not own Sailor Moon._

_**Initial notes**: This is set in the future Crystal Tokyo. I play with the little knowledge we have about it. Mostly manga references; also Parallel Sailor Moon was kind of part of this, but not truly. _

_**Warnings:** Seiya/Usagi (Serenity), woman/woman relationship. _

* * *

**SILVER LINING  
****Small Lady**

She was a child of three when the woman appeared in her life. Small Lady stared from the deep ends of crimson pool eyes to a world that held the shiniest of the things by then.

Mother –Queen, because she had to remember they were playing the funny game in the funny chair now;− was _hush_ _hush_ quiet. Wrapped in her arms, Chibiusa wondered if the stony pose had made her mother become a mannequin, and had the impulse to touch her face.

Queen shifted, leaning against her daughter's hand. Mother's breath was trembling, leaves-like falling from dead trees just the way ser October wanted them to. There was a tale, about them_*_. They said June was crazy, but was ser October who occupied the chair. Small Lady imagined it −wood carved in an auburn forest left nowhere near, and looked at mother's crystal chair. The crystal throne. Dead leaves did not reach it, except when they were mother's shuddering breaths.

"Seiya," said mother. Small Lady could only guess the word was a name and it was the name of the woman. Mother's eyes were fixated on her. The woman was strange, but she was not strange enough.

Then, the _rush rush_ of mother's heart throbbing under Chibiusa's hand at her neck made the child think of the _hummybirds_ in the aviary. The though made Small Lady want to go there, so she looked at mother's face to ask her if they could spend their afternoon in the dome. She wanted to see the birds and sit under the trees−maybe imagine she was in a chair, too−, and hear the chirping. And wait. Patiently expecting for one of them, but only if she was especially good and tried not to chase after them, to come closer, closer. Then maybe the little bird would let a feather fall as a snowflake in one tiny extended hand.

A troubled expression met the child's stubbornly determination. It was something she'd never seen, and the vision made Chibiusa's mind forget the blue sky and the blue birds at the aviary's dome. Why was mother going to cry? Was it something as bad as when someone tried to put her to sleep too soon?

The woman kneeled before them. _Seiya_, mother called her. Small Lady watched her with renovated fascination, trying to comprehend why the simple motion of kneel had put mother in the edge of tears. Countless times, before the Queen, a lot of people had done the same. If she wanted to cry, the woman had to be doing it very wrong.

"Don't…!" mother began, but cut herself off. "Why are you here?" the voice came out the same some tired voices sound.

Seiya, the woman, smiled a kind of sad smile. There were things that made Chibiusa want to watch them forever, such as mother's never ending silver-blond hair or father's mask put on his desk in the moonlight. This smile made her want to look away.

"I sworn to protect you," Seiya answered, in the soothing tone of a musical voice. Her eyes darted to Small Lady in questioning seek. Bluest eyes in the universe moved to mother's face, and they shone in a complete void of total fear. Ought to resolution, to devotion. "I cannot do so in the other end of the galaxy," she concluded. Seiya smile grew intense, defiant.

Mother considered it. Small Lady knew the look because she used that furrow once with her, when she'd wished to see the lady with the pale purple eyes again and asked to. Mother had seemed contemplative then, and was now too.

She'd said no, then.

"But why?" Queen insisted, putting an especial emphasis on it. She hugged her daughter closer, and tiny arms rounded her straightened shoulders.

The tension filled the room; it bore in the silent conversation going on between the two −Mother and Seiya. It made Small Lady feel tired. She missed the significance of those looks, of those unmoved lips, of the unspoken confessions. She nuzzled in the crotch of mother's neck. The world started to fade, fade.

She thought to hear Seiya muttering something. It could have been anything. By then she'd fallen asleep.

She dreamt in colors. Soundless birds stared at her and flew away, but she did not try to chase them.

* * *

_*Neil Gaiman, October In The Chair._

May I continue it?


End file.
